Movie review: Hop

Since I didn't really want to sit through Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules, I elected to take my daughter to see Hop. I'm glad I did. While the critics have mostly panned the movie, I found it to be funny and enjoyable. Is it the best kid movie ever? No. But it's a lot better than sitting through another Barbie animated movie.

Russell Brand lends his voice to E.B., the son of the Easter Bunny. Unfortunately for his dad, E.B. doesn't want to be the new Easter Bunny. He wants to play the drums in a band. When it comes time to hand down the title, the young bunny runs away to Hollywood. He winds up meeting Fred, a (human) son that also wants more than what his father has planned. The two dodge an elite force of ninja bunnies as they try to find their place in the world.

To be honest, I really like Russell Brand. I was very surprised to hear that he was going to be in a family-friendly film. (Maybe Katy really has mellowed him.) Amazingly, I even liked him toned down. James Marsden, though, takes a little bit of getting used to. It's OK for a cartoon rabbit to mug for the camera. It's not so cute when it's a grown man. I didn't let him get in the way of enjoying the movie though.

I suppose this is a movie that completely depends on your mindset going in. If you are going to to see a funny animated movie, you'll probably like it. If you're going in looking for the best of everything, you won't find that here. It's just a cute feel-good movie.

Movie review: Easy A

Olive (Emma Stone) is a normal high school girl. When she figures out that one's popularity doesn't rest on actual events in one's life, she begins rumors about her sex life to skyrocket her social standing.

The movie opens with Olive trying to avoid going on vacation with her best friend, Rhiannon, and Rhiannon's hippy parents. She lies about having a date with a college boy, which leads Rhiannon to believe that Olive will lose her virginity. When Monday morning arrives, Rhiannon grills Olive for details. Initially, Olive says nothing happened on her date. After attempting to endure Rhiannon's antics, Olive lies about having sex. The rumor quickly spreads around the entire school and Olive finds herself slightly more popular as a result.

In class, where they are learning about "The Scarlet Letter," Olive is harassed by one of her classmates. She uses a vulgar retort and ends up in the principal's office, receiving detention as a punishment. In detention, she meets Brandon (Dan Byrd), a gay classmate with bully problems. The two become quick friends.

Brandon convinces Olive to pretend to have sex with him a party so the other guys will think he is straight and stop bullying him. Olive goes along with the plan, believing that more fake sex will raise her popularity even more. When she receives a gift from Brandon afterward, she realizes that there is a financial gain as well.

Soon, word gets out among the unpopular kids at school. Olive will have fake sex with people for gift cards. Unfortunately, this leads Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the leader of the school's religious group, to try to reform Olive's evil ways. The two strangely become friends. Until Marianne's boyfriend, Micah (Cam Gigandet), lies about contracting a sexually transmitted disease from Olive. An enraged Marianne tries to get Olive expelled.

With her reputation in the trash, Olive realizes that this type of popularity isn't what she actually wanted. As she tries to figure a way back to normality, she finds out that her old friend, Todd (Penn Badgley), has been in love with her the entire time. He never believed any of the rumors about her sex life. Together, they crash the school pep rally, telling everyone to watch a webcast. Of course, everyone believes the webcast will be of Olive having sex with Todd. Instead, it is Olive telling the truth about everything.

This is one of those movies I wanted to see as soon as I saw the first trailer. Unfortunately, I ended up having to wait until it hit the RedBox. I'm sad that I waited so long because this was an awesome movie. I had a little bit of difficulty believing Amanda Bynes as a Bible Thumper, but that didn't detract from its enjoyability. Emma Stone was absolutely perfect as Olive. She has managed to perfect the sarcastic wittiness that the character needed. I'm sure many people will write this off as a terrible teen flick. Don't. Go see it!

Tron: Legacy 3D

Yesterday, my husband, my daughter and I went to see Tron: Legacy 3D. My daughter doesn't particularly enjoy 3D movies, but we had no choice since it wasn't available in 2D anywhere near us. Twenty years ago, Kevin Flynn disappeared. He left behind a 7-year old son, Sam, and a major computer software/video game company, ENCOM. Today, Sam has grown into a man disappointed by what his father's company has become, yet he is not ready to take the reigns as the major stockholder. When Kevin's friend, Alan, gets a page from this missing man, Sam goes to his father's old arcade to find out what is going on. Little does he know that his father has been trapped inside a computer program, The Grid, this entire time. With help from a program named Quorra, Sam tries to rescue his father from CLU, the program currently running The Grid.

Like many people my age, I have a fondness for the original Tron. When I heard they were making a sequel, I had my doubts. However, I was determined to not make a decision before seeing the movie. Graphically, the movie is beautiful. The reality scenes are in 2D while the scenes inside The Grid are 3D. I think that made the differences between the two worlds easier to understand. Unfortunately, I found most of the movie boring. (I actually almost fell asleep three times.) The Daft Punk soundtrack is awesome, but the storyline is bland. Absolutely everything is spelled out for the viewer. Even the 'twists' were easily predicted. Perhaps it would have been better with a few more fights. Instead, the movie is almost entirely a game of cat-and-mouse. In short, pretty but dull.

Movie review: Cop Out

Cop Out is a comedy directed by Kevin Smith (of Clerks and Chasing Amy fame). Bruce Willis plays a cop who decides to sell his rare baseball card so he can pay for his daughter's expensive wedding after he gets suspended without pay. When his card is stolen, his jealousy-ridden partner (Tracy Morgan) helps him track down the thief.

I've watched almost all of the movies that Kevin Smith has directed and I've enjoyed them. I wasn't sure what to expect from Cop Out. Especially considering it's been awhile since Willis has done a comedy. Luckily, the stars have aligned themselves and the result is quite hysterical. Though, I have to admit, a good chunk of that credit is due to Morgan. His performance as Paul is comedic brilliance. It's been a rather long time since I laughed so hard. Definitely worth it!

Movie review: The Losers

Much like The A-Team, The Losers are a black ops team that has been betrayed. However, The Losers are a CIA black ops team and they are left for dead after an operation that would have required them to kill children. (Again, like The A-Team, they have a soft spot for the kiddies.) Now living in Bolivia, a strange woman brings the group back together with promises of revenge against Max, the mysterious voice that sent them to their doom, as well as a promise to give them back their lives.

Despite making tons of comparisons to The A-Team, I found myself enjoying the flick. Both my husband and I felt that Chris Evans as Jensen was the best of the bunch. There isn't a lot I can say about the movie without giving away spoilers so I'll leave it at this: If you are a fan of action movies like Die Hard, you'll definitely enjoy this one. While there are a lot of fight scenes, this isn't the movie to watch if you're just looking for explosions. The awesomeness comes from the mixture of comedy and action. Enjoy them both and you'll have a great time watching this.

Movie review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson thinks he is a normal kid with normal deficiencies. Much to his surprise, he finds out that he is anything but normal. He is a demigod - the son of a god. To be specific, he is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. He soon finds out that there are problems in Olympus. Zeus believes that Percy stole his lightning bolt, the source of his powers. If the bolt is not returned within 14 days, war will be declared among the gods.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm a bit of a Greek mythology freak. (For the record, Cassandra is a woman that Apollo fell in love with. He gave her the gift of prophecy. When she did not return his love, he placed a curse on her. No one would believe her predictions.) Needless to say, I was intrigued when I was the commercials for the movie. Unfortunately, I hadn't heard of the books so I wasn't able to read them ahead of time. I went in with an almost-clean slate.

I absolutely loved the movie. The graphics were awesome. My favorite was when Percy and his friends were fighting the hydra. The writers didn't mess with the gods to make them more politically correct or fashionable. For the first time in a long time, I've seen a movie that actually makes me want to read the original source material. Luckily, my local library has copies of the series. I haven't heard anything about the next book - The Sea of Monsters - being made into a movie, but I'll be crossing my fingers!

Movie review: The Fourth Kind

The Fourth Kind is a sci-fi thriller starring Milla Jovovich, The title refers to the four "kinds" of alien contact. The first kind is a UFO sighting, the second kind is observation of a physical result (like a crop circle or radiation), the third kind is contact, and the fourth kind is abduction. Jovovich plays a Hollywood version of "real life" psychologist Dr. Abby Tyler. The movie shows both "real" footage from wireless cctv cameras, as well as a "Hollywood" version with actors in the roles of the participants. According to Dr. Tyler, her husband was mysteriously murdered. As she takes over his life's work, she finds that the people of Nome, Alaska have been unknowingly abducted every night by 'non-human intelligence.' Through hypnosis and therapy, she tries to get to the bottom of what is going on in this small town.

I was skeptical about the validity of the "real life" portions of the movie. Hey, I remember when The Blair Witch Project pulled the wool over my eyes. I wasn't about to let it happen again. Needless to say, the movie is entirely fiction. There is no real life Dr. Abby Taylor and the movie wasn't even shot in Nome. (It was shot in Bulgaria because it's prettier than Nome.) Since the movie pretty much revolves around you believing that this stuff really happened to people (the movie starts off with Jovovich speaking to us out of character about how this is a dramatization of real life events and that real life video and audio recordings will be shown), it's difficult to get invested in the characters. I spent a good portion of the movie waiting for the big death scene. In case you didn't know, the movie is rated PG-13...there isn't a whole lot of really scary things that happen. It's mostly sudden screams and things like that. I think that the movie might have been better if they went for the R rating and added a bit more blood. Not necessarily exploding head type things, but maybe some severe nosebleeds or bleeding from the ears.

If you can suspend your belief for awhile, it's not really a terrible movie. There's some interesting side-by-side video comparing the "real" footage to the "Hollywood' footage. Granted, it would have been better if the grainy footage was actually real footage instead of video that was separately shot by different actors. Overall, I just found it bland and uninteresting.

Movie review: The A-Team

Over the weekend, my husband and I took in The A-Team. Both of us are children of the 80s and fondly remember the television show so we were intrigued to see how it would play out on the big screen. Needless to say, both of us enjoyed it immensely.

When the movie begins, our four favorite military men aren't together yet. Hannibal (Liam Neeson) is working with Face (Bradley Cooper), but they are separated and haven't met B.A. ('Rampage' Jackson) or Murdock (Sharlto Copley). The way the guys get together is a bit of a stretch...but try to look past that part. Once the Fab Four have been united, things take off.

Eight years later, the boys are in Iraq doing their thing. Hannibal gets them unofficially assigned to a mission retrieving a set of lost/stolen plates for a US Mint printing press. Of course, just as they were completing their mission, things go haywire. The plates are, once again, stolen and their commanding officer is killed. The team gets the blame and the four of them are carted off to four different prisons. If you've watched the TV series, you know that they have to break out of prison and try to clear their names.

While I know that the movie needs to set up the back story, it seems to take forever to do so. Luckily, you don't really realize how much time has passed setting everything up. It's not until the boys are tossed in jail that you go "Wow. We're only THIS far into the storyline?" The action is amazing and it keeps you going from scene to scene. The main downfall of the movie is Jessica Biel's characters. I understand that the writers felt they needed to add a female character in order to keep the movie "gender friendly." However, that's just not the basis of the series. It's OK to skip adding female characters JUST to have a chick in the group. She was completely unnecessary and I felt that she brought down the movie just a little. But not enough to skip seeing the movie entirely. If you get a chance to see this in theaters, jump at the chance. I think that the action deserves the big screen.

Movie review: Alice in Wonderland

I finally got the chance to sit down and watch the Blu-Ray of Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. While I was very interested in it, I have to admit that I haven't been following all the news on it very closely. I saw the "sneak peek" pictures of the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, and the White Queen, but I wasn't quite sure how they would work when moving. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised.

Despite the movie being titled Alice in Wonderland, the movie is based more on the sequel, Through the Looking Glass. Alice had spent time in Underland, which she misheard as Wonderland, as a child. However, she wrote it off as sheer craziness and forgot all about it as she grew up. Years later, she happens upon the white rabbit and once more falls down the rabbit hole. There she finds the Red Queen has stolen the throne from the White Queen. Prophecy says that Alice will slay the Jabberwocky, bringing the White Queen and peace back to the kingdom.

The graphics for the movie are gorgeous. I really wish we had seen it in the 3D. I'm sure that tons of people have complained about the look of everything. However, I think it fits right in with the original story. Much like the black-and-white-to-color change in The Wizard of Oz, the look of Underland makes it clear that this is a completely different world where the usual rules don't necessarily apply.

I also found the acting to be superb. Matt Lucas plays both of the Tweedles. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to recreate each emotion, each movement for each of the characters yet still have the concentration to perform the lines properly. Both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter revel in odd roles so they were a perfect fit for the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen. The real surprises come with the virtually unkown Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Wasikowska manages to bring an innocence to the adult Alice while still giving her the backbone to stand up to authority. Meanwhile, Hathaway has this ethereal presence as the White Queen. I recommend everyone watch the bonus material. There is some great insight to how the actors brought these characters to life.

If you're not a fan of Tim Burton's style, then you aren't going to like this movie. But if you are, like I am, I think you will find it amazing and beautiful and one of his best works. (Just to note, I feel the same way about his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.)